Christmas Bay 7/28/19 by Keith Brumbaugh

This Sunday 7/28/19 was my first time to lead a PACK trip. We had 6 participants including myself, my friend Tim (his 1st time ever kayak fishing), Nathan (Music Man), Barry S, Jim R, and Ken J. I was a little nervous since I'm not an expert fisherman by any means, but I think I know enough to at least be somewhat helpful, and my day job I'm an engineering manager so how much different can it be?
 
We started the day off with a bang by not being able to find my VHF radio no matter how hard I looked. Ugh, that is basically trip leader Equipment Fail 101. We communicated by cell phone which worked for part of the group but really not ideal. I'll be buying a spare VHF sometime soon…
 
Arrived around 6AM due to getting delayed looking for the radio. Nathan (Music Man) had already launched and I spotted him waving from his Jackson kayak with green lights. Did manage to text him a few times, he headed to Churchill Bayou for a topwater bite. Nobody else had shown up and I asked around to the other non-PACK kayakers at the put-in.
 
We talked game plan with Barry and Nathan on the text messaging, we all basically decided to head out in our own little groups and would catch up on the water. Tim and I got on the water and headed west because I wanted to try out fishing the big sand bars and a nice drain I'd spotted in google earth.
 
We puttered around for a while, Tim throwing live shrimp, me throwing a Manns-1, a Chicken Boy Bubba Clucker, and a weed-less Berkley grass pig. I was just trying to cover water with those baits and keep moving. Nothing was biting in essence. Tim hooked up with an undersized trout at some point. I noticed the water was really high, and as you can see from the weather info at the bottom, tide was pretty much slack all morning.

I neglected to mention it was crowded out there! There were wade fishermen all over the place on those sand bars. I made it over to the big drain I wanted to try and two wade fishermen were setup at the entrance. One hooked up with something as I watched. I didn't want to blow out their fishing so I opted to go try drifting the sandbar.
 
Drifted a bit and nothing was biting. The water was super clear, nice and pretty (will see pic later) so I changed some lures to more natural colors. Replaced the Manns-1 with a natural looking Mirrodine. Tossed it out, set in the rod holder, and drifted as I tied on a gulp natural mantis shrimp under a popping cork in place of my chartreuse Bubba Clucker. While I was doing that something bit the Mirrodine but got off before I could set the hook. Did a few drifts with one lure trolling and working the gulp under the cork when I snagged something. I tried to unhook then the snag fought back, fish on! hooked a flounder! Got him right next to the boat, gave him one circle and grabbed the net, which he saw, panicked, and spit the hook… darn it!
 
Tried to no avail to re-catch him (flounder will supposedly not move too far and bite again after getting free). Oh well, Tim and I then went to Churchill to try and meet up with other PACK members.
Nathan in the meantime had caught I think 3 flounders of his own, and had 3 others spit the hook on him. Way to go Nathan!
 
We crossed paths with Ken, Barry, and Jim on the water as we made our way to Churchill. They hadn't had much luck, I think Barry and Jim at that point had caught a skipjack between them and Jim boated a small speck. We told them we were going to make our way to John Wayne cut and headed out.
We covered a bunch of water all down Churchill, throwing lures at the grass lines hoping to shake out some reds, but no dice. Made it to the mouth of the intersection of JWC and Churchill around 11.
There was a boat setup there and they had caught some flounder and specs in the area they said. Even a Smack (Spanish Mackerel) if you believe that. We tried for a bit, I'd still not landed anything so I replaced my gulp with some frozen squid cut bait… At least I can catch a hardhead!
 
Tim hooked up with a fish at the intersection, landed a rat red. I was getting nibbles but no takers on my squid. We pressed on into the cut. Wind had picked up bad at this point and there was storms brewing and some thunder boomers off to the north. We decided to pull off to the side and take a breather and check the weather apps. I set my squid out and landed my 1st fish. A fat hardhead (sorry no pic). Got him off the hook and wandered around a bit as I ate lunch. Saw some ibis chilling in the marsh. And of course they didn't appreciate me trying to get a better picture of them.

Oh well. We got back on the yaks and checked the weather. A large storm cell was coming right for us. I texted everyone in the group to watch out and Barry and Nathan got back to me that they were heading out right then. Nathan got quite the workout eventually as he paddled through the building windstorm! He made it back to the launch safely and they packed up and headed out.
 
Meanwhile Tim and I were too far out to get back to launch, so I made the call to get over to the RV park and duck it out under the shelters there in case there was lighting. We made it to a shelter in time and man, that wind was bad - 25-mph gusts!

We waited it out and eventually the wind died down completely. I spotted a good oyster patch from our vantage point and tried it out. Couldn't find any game fish, but did see a bunch of finger mullet having a field day. Water was so clear.

I think at this point Tim and I were on our own.
Back out in the cut I saw this off to the north with a bunch of booming. All north of us and I kept my eyes on the weather the rest of the trip.

We went over to a drain and tried for reds and flounders, but again, no dice. Water was not moving in the drain. I think around 1 or 1:30 we decided to call it a day and started to make the 2 mile paddle back to launch. I trolled a Matrix Shad on 3/8 oz jig head on the way back. I was almost to the mouth of JWC when my rod gets hit! Fish on! I reeled in a trout, but he was 14". He unfortunately swallowed the hook and I was more concerned about getting it out than taking the picture so no pic. I never did get the hook out, hopefully I didn't doom him but I was doing more harm than good at some point so just cut the line and tossed him back to hope for the best.
 
Got to the intersection and man! The wind was dead and the water was glass. I trolled some around the intersection and hooked another fish! It was another flounder! This time I played him out a bit and then brought him to the net quickly as possible. Got him! ~17 inch

That about did it for the day. Tim and I made our way back to the launch. Low wind made the return trip easier. I checked my GPS log and we covered about 8.1 miles.

Was a great trip and looking forward to leading another, next time with my radio! Keith